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JERUSALEM—In a historic address, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that Ottawa’s staunch support of Israel is a “moral imperative,” vital to Canada’s own “strategic interests.”

In the struggle for democracy and the fights against intolerance and terrorism, Harper said that Canada has many good reasons to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel.

“Canada and Israel are the greatest of friends, and the most natural of allies,” Harper said Monday evening.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been effusive in his praise the previous evening when he welcomed Harper as he kicked off his Middle East tour, calling the prime minister a great friend of the Jewish people.

Harper returned the kind wordsMonday night as he became because the first prime minister to ever address the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Israeli parliamentarians literally rolled out the red carpet. And many of the more than 200 delegates joining Harper on his trip attended a reception before the speech, including Air Canada President and CEO Calin Rovinescu, and later filled the public galleries to listen.

Harper said that he looks forward to “deepening and broadening” the trade ties between the two countries.

But the prime minister suggested the true ties between the two countries are tied to “friendship and kinship.”

“Jews have been present in Canada for more than 250 years,” he said.

“In generation after generation, by hard work and perseverance, Jewish immigrants often starting with nothing, have prospered greatly,” Harper said.

In his address, Harper laid out a detailed explanation for the Conservatives’ strong backing of Israel since he won power in 2006.

He praised Israel and its accomplishments, which he said occurred in the shadow of the Holocaust.

“The understanding that it is right to support Israel because, after generations of persecution, the Jewish people deserve their own homeland,” he said.

Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so,” he said.

Harper said those who “loathe the liberty of others, and who hold the differences of peoples and cultures in contempt . . . often begin by hating the Jews,” Harper said.

“Those forces which have threatened the state of Israel every single day of its existence and which today, as 9/11 graphically showed us, threaten us all,” he said, according to a prepared text of his remarks.

“I would argue support today for the Jewish State of Israel is more than a moral imperative. It is also of strategic importance,” Harper said.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has rooted itself in the ideals of “freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”

Over time, he said this is the only ground “in which human rights, political stability and economic prosperity may flourish.”

“Likewise, when they are threatened anywhere, they are threatened everywhere,” Harper said.

That staunch pro-Israel approach has sparked some criticism that Harper’s approach to the Middle East is unbalanced. But the prime minister said that Canada’s commitment to be “fair and just . . . is a universal one.

“It applies no less to the Palestinian people, than it does to the people of Israel,” Harper said.

“Just as we unequivocally support Israel’s right of self-defence, so too Canada has long-supported a just and secure future for the Palestinian people,” Harper said.

“And, I believe, we share with Israel a sincere hope that the Palestinian people and their leaders will choose a viable, democratic, Palestinian state, committed to living peacefully alongside the Jewish State of Israel,” Harper said.

Two Arab-Israeli members of the Knesset heckled Harper and walked out as he denounced those who accused Israel of apartheid. Others member of the Knesset gave him a standing ovation.

While he said that no country is beyond “legitimate questioning or criticism,” Harper made clear Canada would not single out Israel for criticism on the world stage.

Instead, he said the world is seeing a new brand of anti-Semitism, a “sophisticated language” uses anti-Israel talk to mask racism.

“This is the face of the new anti-Semitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel,” Harper said.

He said that any judgment of Israel’s actions must start with the understanding of the “attacks and slanders” that Israelis endure daily.

“If you act to defend yourselves, you will suffer widespread condemnation, over and over again,” Harper said.

“But should you fail to act you alone will suffer the consequence of your inaction and that consequence will be final, your destruction,” he said.

While saying that “no nation is perfect,” Israel’s policies are not responsible for the instability in the Middle East today, he said.

“In the democratic family of nations, Israel represents values which our government takes as articles of faith and principles to drive our national life,” Harper said.

“Therefore through fire and water, Canada will stand with you,” he said.

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